2012 General Election Predictions: 49th Congressional District

This is the last in my handicapping series for Congressional races as it is the last race in Orange County having the City of Dana Point within its boundaries along with Las Flores and Ladera Ranch:

Credit goes to Meridian Pacific for the map.

Much like the 48th Congressional District this seat has a 15% Republican registration advantage and DTS voters only trail Democrats by 6% in registration. On top of this DTS voters are more conservative in this area.

Darrell Issa who currently holds the seat has great name I in San Diego which holds the majority of the district. The results in the primary are not a huge surprise:

United States Representative; District 49

Darrell Issa, Republican ………. 71,329 votes 61.1%

Jerry Tetalman, Democratic ………. 35,816 votes 30.7%

Dick Eiden ………. 7,988 votes 6.8%

Albin Novinec ………. 1,626 votes 1.4%

Tetalman ran 1 point ahead of Democratic registration but that is an indicator that Issa will gain a similar amount of the votes that went to the 2 DTS candidates. Even if Tetalman were to get all of the votes from Dick Eiden and Albin Novinec it would not matter.

To make matters worse for Tetalman, Issa currently has over $1,000,000 in the bank after the primary. Tetalman on the other hand has just over $6,000.

Looking at all the factors at play in this district I believe that the winner will be: